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Carmela regarded her with new eyes. The confession both surprised her and made complete sense. It explained why her natural charm could be so rough around the edges.

“Can you say something here? I feel more naked than,”

Rhiannon looked down at her bare chest, “than actually being naked.”

“That drive is going to get you a long way in our profession,” she decided, propping herself up on one elbow and running her fingertips along Rhiannon’s bent leg.

“Not exactly going to get me a girlfriend, though,” she replied with a smirk. The g-word sat there like a fish flopping on a deck desperate to get back in the water until Rhiannon cleared her throat and spoke again. “How about you? Was Queen Jackie your first serious relationship?”

“God, no. I think she would have put me o relationships permanently if that’s what I thought all women were like,”

she joked.

“So who was your first love?” Rhiannon asked, the gray in her eyes dancing as she leaned in to listen to the answer.

Rhiannon couldn’t have guessed that the question would send a cold spike up Carmela’s spine. Sitting up, she rested her back against the headboard. “Who remembers that far back?” Even as she smiled to lighten her tone, her mind had already jumped back in time nearly twenty-five years.

“Oh come on,” she urged, poking Carmela’s foot. “Tell me about baby Carmela’s angsty teenage love. You know so much about me, and you’re still such a mystery. Sexy and all, but I want to know everything about you.”

The soft grin on Rhiannon’s lips slowed the walls building up automatically over Carmela’s heart to blot out the memories left untouched for so long. Instead of shrinking

away from the topic, Carmela took a deep, unsteady breath.

“I was fourteen and she was my best friend,” she confessed, heat spreading across her chest.

“Like the start of every great YA romance,” Rhiannon interrupted with a chuckle.

“It started that way,” she agreed. “Full body shakes while holding hands under the covers during sleepovers.” She laughed. “We were both so terrified to name what we felt, but it was just so intense in that way only teenagers can be, there was no ignoring it.”

“So who made the first move?” Rhiannon asked as if watching a particularly engrossing movie.

“I did,” she admitted. “Jesus, I was so nervous. Using a series of beeper codes—”

“Beeper codes?”

Carmela laughed at the con

fused expression on Rhiannon’s face. “We didn’t have cell phones. It was the best we could do to communicate without our parents picking up another phone in the house to listen to our conversations.”

When the explanation worsened her uncertainty, she continued. “You know what pagers are? We had a notebook full of handwritten codes to send each other. So, if we wanted to say I miss you, we would page someone with 123.

And we could string them together to send more complex messages.”

“That is fascinating and completely archaic. What an absolute mission,” Rhiannon decided with a shake of her head.

Chuckling, Carmela agreed. “We were just happy to have something private, but yeah, not optimal.”

“So what happened when you texted her or whatever?”

Rhiannon asked, shaking Carmela’s leg as if she could dislodge the story more quickly.

“I told her I loved her and we planned a sleepover. Kind of like a first date with hot wings and pizza. Very romantic.”

Carmela grinned. “And when I was about to lose my nerve while we watched Four Weddings and a Funeral, I lunged at her. It was the most awkward, tooth clanging kiss.” She laughed. “She tore part of my bottom lip with her braces.”

Rhiannon chuckled. “That’s a nerdy visual I wouldn’t have expected.”

“Oh yeah, I was a total dork, but I didn’t really know it.